Luke 18:1-8 KJV And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint; [2] Saying, There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man: [3] And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary. [4] And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man; [5] Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me. [6] And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith. [7] And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? [8] I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?
I. INTRODUCTION—A PARABLE ON PRAYER AND BEYOND
-This is a parable about prayer and beyond. . . but it is a parable that moves prayer into one of the most incredible spiritual places of authority afforded to us. We can prayer with the force of the Kingdom of God behind us.
-This is one of the great Christian principles—persistence in prayer.
• Praying until an answer comes.
• Praying until deliverance comes.
• Praying until you can see what you were pursuing.
George Mueller—It is not enough to begin to pray, nor to pray alright; nor is it enough to continue for a time to pray; but we must patiently, believing, continue in prayer until we obtain an answer.
-We can become convinced of the will of God in a lot of situations that life hurls at us. We can know with certainty because we understand what is in the Word of God.
-What is the will of God for a saint?
• Healing is in the will.
• Salvation is in the will.
• Victorious thinking is in the will.
• Peace is in the will.
• Joy is in the will.
-If you can understand that the devil wants you to give up in your praying so that the prayer will never be answered, it will help you keep on praying. But the devil knows that we are emotional creatures and he will do everything to use negative emotions to cause us to quit praying.
-Emotions such as:
• Guilt.
• Condemnation.
• Discouragement.
• Doubt.
• Unbelief.
• Anger.
• Jealousy.
• Lust.
• Hatred.
• Wrath.
• Strife.
• Anything that wars against the Spirit.
-If the devil can drop you down into complaining, whining, crying, it won’t be too long before you will quite praying and never get your answer. But this widow in Luke 18 was determined to get relief from her adversary through this judge.
• How many revivals have been lost because we quit praying?
• How many souls have been lost because we quit praying for them?
• How many times have you slipped back into the spot that you were because you quit praying?
-We have to walk in after a red-hot Sunday morning and pick up where we left off! When you have the advantage you have to keep on pressing!
II. REASONS FOR THE DELAY
-There are reasons that it takes time for prayers to be answered:
1. Sometimes demonic resistance delays the answer from God before you and heaven can prevail.
-You don’t need to look any further than the book of Daniel.
-Don’t be surprised when your prayers are not immediately answered. In Daniel 10:12-13, we find that Daniel was praying for twenty-one days before the answer came.
2. Sometimes it takes time for separate parts of complex situations to fit together.
-In Acts 16 before a revival could break out there was a time of pain and suffering. That is why we have to endure hardness as a good soldier. Sometimes enduring hardness means that you just keep on showing up and living out your commitment. Not a lot of fanfare just commitment.
-Paul and Silas had to move into a place that was just right for God to work. You might object and say, “What about their bodies and their pain?” To which I would tell you that God is more concerned with my holiness than he is my happiness.
3. Sometimes it takes time for God to coordinate circumstances to bring pressure on a person until they become willing to do what God wants them to do.
-Over the years, I have heard numbers of testimonies of people being converted but only after a long series of things that had taken place. It seemed as if God was never going to save them but finally they come in and get the Holy Ghost.
-Brother Hunt in Brenham, Texas had a man to sit on the pews of the church for 10 years before he got the Holy Ghost. There is a story behind it.
4. Sometimes God has to prune our lives of the things hindering our prayer.
-This involves aspects of holiness and Christian character. Instead of trying to defend our behavior, we ought to just repent.
-We can find so many ways to fall into self-deception as to why we are in the condition that we are in that we get comfortable being the way we have always been.
-That is why that holiness is crucial for our lives. Worldliness causes us to forget about God. It will cause us to be impatient with the blessings and answers we are looking for. It causes us to say (foolishly) that God is not fair in what He deems for our lives. Worldliness causes unbelief to rise to incredible heights.
If some of you would just make a concerted effort to step up in your lives and living half of the Gospel it would make all the difference in the world.
III. THE TEXT
Luke 18:5 KJV Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.
-The Greek word for weary is “hupopiazo.” It means to beat black and blue, to smite so as to cause bruises and livid spots. Like a boxer one buffets his body, handles it roughly, disciplines by hardships. It means to give one intolerable annoyance after another.
-This is what this woman was doing to this judge. God is not an unjust judge but there is power in praying to be released from your adversaries.
IV. CONCLUSION—BROTHER MARK MORGAN
Brother Mark Morgan invited D.C. Moody to come preach for him. He preached against everything that moved. Brother Morgan called the preacher that sent him and asked him “what in the world have you got me into?” The preacher told him. . . Just ride it out. . . One night during that revival, Brother Morgan said that the spirit that had been hindering that church walked in and a tussle begin. . . Don’t think for a minute the devil don’t come to church. . . he does!
-Sometimes I ignore him and other times I try to inspire worship and get the upper hand on it. . . God always prevails.
He said that on this night, that D. C. Moody decided they were going to confront the spirit. He determined that this spirit had been attempting to conquer both Brother and Sister Morgan’s mind with all sorts of deceptive thinking. Things like:
• Must be something wrong with you.
• Must not be as good of a pastor as you need to be.
• Must be some issue in your life that is weighing you down.
• Must be some sin in your life.
• If you were a real man of God, you would have the victory over it.
• If you were a real man of God, people wouldn’t be backsliding.
• If you were a real man of God, people would be getting the Holy Ghost.
• And all sorts of other off-the-wall thoughts. . . .
But Brother Morgan was contending with medicine men and reprobates who thought they were saints and all of it was motivated by the dark side of the spirit world. After seven years, he was so weary that he did not even want to go to church. He was ready to give up on it.
One morning when he had gotten so discouraged that he was about to throw in the towel, something happened. He got a phone call at 7:20 A.M. from a Sister Chenault in Oklahoma—this is the one who also talks to Brother Keith Clark on a pretty regular basis. She has been in the church for years and is very committed to the Lord. She is quite powerful in the Spirit and sees visions and so forth. God uses her because she has a strong prayer life. Some of the things that Brother Clark has told me that she has said to him would be cast off by some as unbelievable. . .
But on this morning, she calls Brother Morgan, whom she had never even met. She had a word from the Lord for him. She said the Lord told me that you have been praying for revival and a supernatural work of the Spirit but you have been concerned that it would throw the church into chaos and upheaval. Is that right? To which he told her that it was. He said he did not want to have a reputation as a wacko and he also knew that there were men who had been destroyed by it and he did not want it to happen to him.
She then told him that the Lord told her to tell him that only when the Gifts and the supernatural power of the Spirit operate in love can they be successful. If they ever went beyond that—a pursuit of honor and self-aggrandizement it would cost him his ministry.
During his tenure at Okmulgee, Oklahoma he had experiences that were devilish. He would have medicine men to come into the services and start doing their rain-dance routine right in the middle of church. . . He said it is funny now but it wasn’t real funny when it was going on. . . He said they would have claws on leather cords around their neck and would be shaking their bead shakers literally manifesting the power of demons. . . They would try to put curses on him and his wife that would send them off into massive depression. . . but it was not depression, it was hell trying to take them out. . . the only answer to some of that is an Apostolic church!!!
But during all of this time, he would find out that there were people scattered around the state of Oklahoma and other places that would be in deep intercession for him and his wife. Sometimes these intercessors would pray for him as long as two hours.
In fact, later one of those intercessors would tell Brother Morgan a chilling vision that he had seen. He saw Brother Morgan and on the other side of the country there was an Indian medicine man. He was a large man with his hair pulled back into a long pony-tail and had a leathery face. In one of his hands was a crow and he released the crow and it flew across the country to the place where Brother Morgan was staying and landed on the roof. The Lord told this intercessor, “They have summoned a heart attack against Brother Morgan and are going to try to take his voice out in the end-time revival. Those spirits that are resident in that region hate him.”
While this was going on, at Brother Morgan’s house (he was not home), the lights started flickering on and off. His wife and mother-in-law immediately realized what was going on. There was also a girl from the Okmulgee church who had been delivered from the practice of the tribal witchcraft also knew what was taking place. This is not meant to be spooky but understand that it is nothing more than fear tactics because this is exactly how the devil works on us—through fear.
Brother Morgan’s wife called him while all this was going on and asked him what he was doing. He told her that he wasn’t doing anything, just preaching. She told him that whatever it was that he had preached he had gotten something stirred up in the spirit world! Sister Morgan told him that she was alright that the Lord had given her peace to deal with it but she thought she would just call and see what was taking place. Some of her peace came from trusting in God in earlier battles.
When the devil gets the idea that a revival is coming to your life all sorts of attacks will take place.
Brother Morgan started having some health problems and it appeared that he was going to succumb to it. But the Lord wasn’t finished with him and healed his body. Around this same time, Brother Morgan was praying in his church and the Lord showed him a vision. There was a man walking down the road and he had a large sack hanging over his shoulder. He asked the Lord, “Who is this and what is he doing?” The Lord replied back, “He’s the Avenger. He will be in the area for a while and everything that is in his sack is what the Lord has for his church. But when he gets to the door of the church and knocks to come in there will be two things that stop him from doing what is supposed to happen—strife or contention among the saints and unbelief. There are two things that must take place for the Avenger to work—love and faith.”
When Brother Morgan had this vision, there were a couple of his assistants in the church praying with him on this night and he shared with them what the Lord showed him. One of the young men, Terry Harmon (whom I know), started heading for the back door. Brother Morgan asked him, “Where are you going?” Brother Harmon told him that he was going home to literally sweep off his front porch and put down a welcome mat because he wanted all that the Avenger had for him, for his family, and for the Church.
Nahum 1:2 KJV God is jealous, and the LORD revengeth; the LORD revengeth, and is furious; the LORD will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies.
Nahum 1:12-13 KJV Thus saith the LORD; Though they be quiet, and likewise many, yet thus shall they be cut down, when he shall pass through. Though I have afflicted thee, I will afflict thee no more. [13] For now will I break his yoke from off thee, and will burst thy bonds in sunder.
After all of this took place, Brother Morgan went back to the pulpit and told the church, “We need to send back everything the enemy has sent to us and let it do to them what they wanted to do to us.” This was on a Sunday night. . . on Wednesday night one of the little Indian ladies in the church came up with a note that said that one of the leading medicine men from Hannah, Oklahoma died with a heart attack.
-If you can ever understand that is not about you and the devil but it is about God and the devil, you will turn around and tell the Avenger to come on and do His will.
Philip Harrelson
June 6, 2010
